


Living Dead Girl

by alwaysupatnight



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Episode: s05e08 Coda, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Near Death Experiences, Out of Body Experiences, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 15:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6289609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysupatnight/pseuds/alwaysupatnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If she’s dead, it’s definitely <i>not</i> Heaven. That much she can tell for sure. Her daddy had taught her all about God, and what happens on the other side of life was not <i>this</i>. This could never be Heaven.<br/>Heaven is <i>not</i> a hospital hallway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living Dead Girl

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been in the works for such a long time... ever since THAT episode happened. But I've had the concept for a story like this for much longer than that. Honestly, I just need more stories in my life where Beth and Merle get to be friends. Anyway, I'm glad to finally have this done so I can share it with you all. This story is dedicated to Team D. Your theories are my only hope for this show. And thanks of course to [imaginedfables](http://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginedfables/pseuds/imaginedfables) for your help! :)

_“I get it now.”_

:::

She is pain. Her head screams with it.

With a small whine, Beth slits her eyes and is half blinded by a piercing light. The pounding in her forehead amplifies, and she can feel her heartbeat crashing throughout her skull, officially making this the worst migraine she’s ever had; that time she got shitfaced drinking moonshine doesn’t even compare.

It feels like the end of the world all over again.

A dark figure moves into the light, and the stabbing pains at the back of Beth’s eyes dims. Even with her vision blurred, she recognizes his distinct silhouette.

_Daryl_.

Beth breathes out in relief, the first breath she’s taken in weeks that hasn’t left her lungs constricted with worry.

She’d told him he’d be the last man standing.

Daryl kneels beside her, and her gaze travels all over his familiar face. His hair, disheveled as ever, conceals eyes she knows are a sharp shade of blue. The scruff on his chin – threaded with gray – remains unshaved, and his cheekbones are so severe you could use them to sharpen knives.

The blood staining his lips like a lover’s kiss... that’s new.

Daryl bows his head, his shoulders hunched and thick arms slackened at his sides. His eyes squinch shut, squeezing wetness out of the corners that slips in crooked trails over grimy cheeks. Hoarse sobs rip from a mouth twisted with pain, his muscular frame trembling in great waves.

Worry weaves itself back into the knit of her brow, and Beth reaches up with her uninjured hand to cup his stubbled cheek, expecting to feel the rough hairs of his chin and the warmth that always radiates from underneath his skin. Even in the midst of a Georgia winter, those nights when they almost froze, he was always so warm.

But now... she feels _nothing_.

Startled, Beth pushes herself up onto her elbows and lets loose a scream as she tears away from her own body like the lining of a double-sided piece of tape.

It’s like in the old cartoons: when Tom dies in some horrible way from chasing that mouse, Jerry, and he lies there dead before his spirit sprouts a halo and angel wings and ascends into a heavenly ray of light.

Except...

There is no heavenly light to see.

There is only blood and its wine-red stain on the pristine tiled floors.

Her crumpled body lying face down in it, a grisly halo of her own blooming about her head.

And the splatter drops of it as it drips from the wound in her skull.

Beth scrambles to her knees. She jerks her head up only to find more blood, a sea of it, flooding towards her. And there’s Dawn sprawled on her back, face frozen with the same stunned expression she’d been wearing when a bullet entered her forehead.

Beth stifles a shriek in her palm, gagging as the wetness seeps into her jeans.

_What the hell is this?_ Beth screams in her mind. People don’t just wake up outside of their bodies. This can’t be real. She must be hallucinating. Or maybe Dawn knocked her around some more and now she’s stuck in some crazy nightmare. She can’t be _dead_! She can’t be. Because if she is...

If she’s dead, it’s definitely _not_ Heaven. That much she can tell for sure. Her daddy had taught her all about God, and what happens on the other side of life was not _this_. This could never be Heaven.

Heaven is _not_ a hospital hallway.

Her memory comes surging back. Daryl, Rick, the trade-off. She and Carol could go free if Noah stayed to take her place. And the last thing she remembers is stabbing Dawn with those scissors. Beth sees the glint of the steel handles sticking out of her bulletproof vest like some failed game of Operation. Then... everything goes blank. And when she wakes up, Dawn is just as dead as her, oozing blood from the off-center third eye in her forehead.

Bet she hadn’t seen _this_ coming.

There’s the acrid tang of gunpowder in her nose and a persistent throb in her head. Beth touches shaking fingers to the crown of her head, wrenching them back when her fingers slide through slick strands. She stares at the tips of her fingers, paralyzed by the wet shine on her skin. Her fingers burn with its warmth. _So red_. Like the stain weeping from the slit at her wrist when she’d wanted to end it all. Or the shock of color that sprayed the ground as her daddy’s head parted from his body. Beth reaches again and prods at her scalp, gasping for breath. Her fingers dig a little deeper until she feels a tear of meat and bone the size of a quarter.

_I got shot?_

That much is clear from the hole in her skull and the congealing blood in her ponytail.

Piecing the events together is simple enough. Dawn had still been alive mere minutes ago and now she isn’t.

_She shot me... and then someone shot her._

Daryl, she guesses from the discarded gun by his knees.

Daryl, who looks like he’s been _gutted_.

Beth watches with tears in her eyes as he reaches for her motionless body and places trembling hands upon her back. His touch is so soft, so delicate, as if he’s afraid he might break her.

Beth figures it’s already too late for that.

With the greatest care, Daryl nudges Beth’s body, guiding her gently onto her back, and hiding from view the mess of her skull. Beth shivers as she lays eyes on the entry wound in the upper left side of her forehead.

It’s smaller than she expected. She almost feared her face was missing with the way the back of her head looked covered in all that blood. But for the dime-sized bullet hole in her forehead, she looks like she could be sleeping.

_Maybe I am_ , Beth hopes. _Maybe this is all just a really bad dream_.

She knows it isn’t when she glances around at all the wrecked faces of her family, each one etched with pain. Carol, Sasha, Tyreese. Even Rick, whose face is spotted with her blood. There’s a streak of it across his neck, and his eyes shine with tears. He clears his throat, swallowing thickly before speaking to the Grady people. “If you want to come with us... just step forward now.”

There’s a small murmur from the officers and orderlies, but in the end, no one steps forward. Not one person. Not even Edwards.

_Coward_.

A warm tingle at the nape of her neck compels Beth to glance back at herself. Daryl’s palm has shifted to cradle the back of her head with the same care he’d give to hold baby Judith, fingers carding through her damp hair. Her head lolls against his shoulder as he moves her body into his lap with one arm. A sob tears from Daryl as he holds her close, pressing his cheek to the top of her head.

“Daryl,” Beth chokes. She reaches out to touch him, but just as before, her fingers meet nothing but air. She merely watches as Daryl cradles her in his arms, his head bowed close to hers, lips bumping into her hair – a clumsy first kiss.

Finally, Daryl unfolds around her, reaching beneath her legs. Beth feels him everywhere, his warmth like an embrace from behind, across her shoulders, in the backs of her knees. Daryl attempts to stand, but struggles to get his feet under him.

Rick’s hand comes to a rest on Daryl’s shoulder as he crouches down beside him. He sweeps a hand all over his face, sniffing back the emotion bleeding in his eyes. “Here,” Rick croaks, reaching forward to help carry Beth’s body.

“I got her,” Daryl grunts.

“Let me help you.” Beth feels Rick’s touch glance across her shoulder before Daryl jerks her roughly to the side. Her arms and legs swing like the Raggedy Ann doll she once owned as a little girl.

“ _I said I got her!_ ” Daryl snarls.

Rick nods, palms up in a placating gesture as he backs away.

The silence is deafening as everyone stands around watching Daryl struggle to his feet with Beth in his arms. With a final rasping breath, Daryl stands, and Rick pulls ahead of the group, guiding their mourning procession down each of the five flights of stairs.

A lifetime later, they reach the bottom. Beth shields her eyes from the burst of light as Rick passes through the door that leads outside.

There’s still no sign of Heaven. What lies beyond the walls of Grady Memorial Hospital is but a ruined city.

And coming up the parking lot is Maggie.

Beth rushes ahead of Daryl and past the others to see her sister collapse to her knees screaming. Glenn reaches for her, hands on Maggie’s back.

This isn’t the reunion she’d imagined.

Everyone looks on in shocked silence. Even the faces of those Beth doesn’t recognize appear as stunned as her own family members’. Michonne stands off to the side, and Beth catches the tremble of her friend’s lips.

What was it she’d once told her? _When you care about people, hurt is kinda part of the package_.

It almost seems ironic now, that Michonne would be crying for her next. She’d never meant to be the one inflicting pain.

Daryl drifts forward like a wraith, stopping before her sister.

He’s strong. Has the biggest arms she’s ever seen on a man aside from Tyreese. But after hauling her down five flights of stairs, he slumps to the ground with her still in his arms.

_You’re heavier than you look_.

Maggie breaks free of Glenn and crawls forward, scraping her hands and knees on the asphalt. “Bethy,” Maggie says, and the pet name coming from Maggie’s cracked voice is somehow worse than the bullet that’d ripped through her skull.

“Maggie,” Beth says. “Daryl.” She reaches for them, knowing her touch will do nothing to comfort either of them. “I’m here,” she whispers to no one. “I’m still here.”

“They can’t hear you, sugar,” a rasping voice answers, one she hasn’t heard in over a year.

Even in death, Beth thinks, she can still be surprised.

He’s the same as the last time she saw him, dressed in a dark jacket, white tank, and khaki cargo pants. Except this time there’s a hand instead of a metal contraption attached to his right forearm.

This isn’t quite the welcome party she’d expected upon dying. Beth hoped that when she bit the dust that maybe her parents would be there to greet her at the pearly gates. Or Shawn, or Otis, or Patricia, or Jimmy. Lori or T-Dog even. Instead, she’s greeted by none other than Merle Dixon – and with no pearly gates to speak of.

“Merle,” Beth breathes.

“Ya remember who I am, sunshine?”

How could she ever forget Merle Dixon? He’d kidnapped Maggie and Glenn. He’d put her entire family on edge with his mere presence. And when he fought, he was an uncontrollable force. Maggie and Michonne _together_ weren’t enough to stop him, and they were two of the strongest women she knew. It’d taken a bullet to the ceiling to finally get him to stop fighting with Glenn. And the list of grievances continued with him kidnapping Michonne. Not to mention the years of abuse Daryl suffered. Merle Dixon had caused a lot of people a lot of pain, but none nearly so much as his brother.

But then he’d also saved Rick’s life once. And she remembers walking in on him as he talked sweetly to a babbling Judith in her cardboard crib. He’d even listened in silence as she sang comfort to her family in the form of a Tom Waits song, and Beth figured even devils could be still sometimes.

She also remembers he’d sacrificed everything to be with Daryl.

Maybe now he’s with him all the time.

“Yeah,” Beth says. “I remember you.”

Merle speaks, and it’s like listening to sandpaper talk. “Now, listen up,” he says. “Time’s wastin’.”

Beth wipes at the wetness on her cheeks. “Where’s my mom and dad? If I’m dead, why ain’t they here?”

“Ya ain’t dead.”

_The hell she isn’t_. Daryl is cradling her body just a couple feet away. He’s breathless with pain, the devastation on his face unmistakable. Maggie presses her forehead into Beth’s, sobbing so hard that no sound comes out.

Maggie doesn’t cry for nothing.

“I must be,” Beth snaps, “because _you’re_ dead, Mr. Dixon!”

Merle winces so slightly that Beth can’t be sure she’d seen it. Merle might have done some unforgiveable things in his life, but Daryl loved his brother. Beth squeezes her eyes shut, remembering Daryl’s pain that night on the porch, and unearths a morsel of kindness in her heart for the ghost of Daryl’s brother. “I’m sorry if that’s news to you,” she says sincerely, “but if I’m seein’ you, that must mean I’m dead too.”

Beth gives Merle a withering glance before moving her eyes back to herself in Daryl’s arms. Some of the others have circled around them now, sniffling and shedding tears. Michonne discretely swipes at the wetness under her eyes with a gloved hand.

Merle growls. “I’m tryin’ to tell ya–”

“What, so you’re like my guardian angel now?” Beth says, feeling her anger come surging back.

“Jesus.” Merle throws his hands up in frustration. “Would ya just listen to me, girl? Ya ain’t got much time left!”

There’s a shout from the group, and Beth turns to find Glenn with his fists clenched nearly coming to blows with a burly redheaded man – a soldier, Beth thinks, judging from his camo pants and the rifle strapped to his side.

“That is my _sister_ you’re talking about,” Glenn hisses through bared teeth, struggling as a girl with her hair pulled back into a ponytail restrains him by the arms. Another girl wearing a military cap comes between the two men, her hands pressed to each of their broad chests.

“ _Now is not the fucking time!_ ” ponytail shouts, fighting to keep Glenn from lunging at the other man.

“You are such an ass,” the other girl says, punching the soldier in the arm.

The soldier backs down and mumbles an apology, though Beth can hardly detect any sincerity in it. Glenn casts him a dirty look as Maggie pulls him back. She presses her face into Glenn’s neck, her sobs stifled in his t-shirt. He holds her close, rubbing his palm across her back in soothing circles.

“She...” Daryl starts, his voice cracking. Everyone’s attention gathers on him. Daryl clears his throat and tries again. “She deserves a funeral.”

“Of course,” Rick says, patting Daryl on the shoulder.

Beth looks around at all the wet faces. Even the girl with the ponytail has tears in her eyes. The girl inches her way over to Maggie, settling a comforting hand on her sister’s and Glenn’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. Glenn reaches a hand to touch hers, trying for a smile but failing, and simply nods his acknowledgement.

Just then, a small voice cuts the silence, and Beth’s heart throbs as Carl walks up with a burbling Judith in his arms.

He’s alive. _Judith_ is alive. Fresh tears stream down Beth’s face. A burst of laughter escapes her tight throat, and she smiles for what feels like the first time in years. Beth staggers forward, burning to hold the baby she’d mothered like her own child. It’s as she’s reaching for Judith that she remembers _she’s dead_. She can’t touch her. _She won’t ever hold Judith again_.

Beth sinks to the ground, hugging herself around the middle, and screams.

Today would have been so beautiful.

“Dad?” Carl asks.

It’s agony, seeing the pain bleed out of everyone she loves over and over again. Judith – thank God – is still too young to understand, but Carl only has to see the others’ grief-stricken faces to know there’s more bad news.

“Carl,” Rick says in a voice that’s almost a pained groan. “I’m sorry.” His hand slides down Carl’s back, but Carl shakes him off, transferring the baby into Michonne’s arms as he brushes by her. He comes to a stop right before Daryl.

Carl bows his head, the brim of his hat obscuring his face. The boy’s shoulders tense and shake, fists clenched at his sides.

He doesn’t cry. Beth’s not so sure he can anymore.

Her heart breaks for the boy she’d cared for like a brother.

Merle digs a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He produces a lighter from nowhere, and brings the flame in his cupped hands to the end of his cigarette, releasing a long breath of smoke.

Beth coughs, feeling a hysterical laugh bubbling up in her throat. She’s dead. Her family is in pieces grieving for her. And here’s Merle Dixon’s ghost smoking cigarettes like it’s Tuesday.

“ _Why_ are you here?” Beth demands. “I thought people you _love_ come for you when you die. You’re _Daryl’s_ brother. _What are you doin’ here?_ ”

Merle shrugs. “Call it a favor for the big man upstairs,” he says, taking the cigarette from his mouth.

“Yeah, but why _you_?” Beth asks, swiping angrily at her wet cheeks. “Why not my mom or dad?”

“Hell if I know! Ya think I’m just here for shits and giggles? Like I ain’t got some Bingo game in the sky to get back to?”

Oh, so there is Bingo. And apparently cigarettes too. Who knew the afterlife provided so many luxuries?

“I’m here ‘cause I gotta be,” Merle says. “Ya still here ‘cause you ain’t done yet.”

“ _Then tell me what to do!_ ” Beth screams.

“Oh shit!” someone cries, and Beth spins to find the girl with the ponytail raising her gun as a horde of walkers shuffle into the parking lot.

“We got incoming!” the soldier shouts, picking off two walkers with his rifle as they come crashing against the chain-link fence.

Glenn hauls Maggie up off the ground, pulling her to her feet and thrusting her gun into her hands. The others each raise their weapons and fire upon the wall of undead that has come crashing through the fence.

Carl rushes over to Michonne who is still holding the baby and takes Judith, cradling her close. With her hands free, Michonne unsheathes her sword, whirling around and slicing the heads off of a group of walkers that have snuck up on them.

A walker manages to slip by the others unnoticed by everyone but Beth. Its dead eyes rove about in circles within its head until they land on Daryl. It lurches forward, its groans becoming more frenzied with each step.

“Daryl, get up!” Beth cries, reaching for his arm.

It’s no use. He can’t hear her, can’t feel her.

“Told ya he can’t hear ya,” Merle says, though Beth notices the tightness around his eyes and the worry in his mouth when Daryl still hasn’t moved.

“Do something!” She looks to Merle with begging eyes, but he looks away.

The walker advances with a snarl. “NO!” Beth screams, and she pushes forward to shield him with herself.

Beth jumps as a bullet blasts right behind her, and she looks in time to see grey matter explode out the front of the walker’s head. The walker slumps to the ground, revealing Rick with his revolver still raised and smoking at the end.

Beth shakes with relief. She kneels in front of Daryl, his blood splattered face downturned and just inches away. She’s never seen him this close before, and he’s beautiful. He’s _alive_. He’s so alive. And still, she’s hit with the urge to run her hands over him just to make sure.

“Daryl!” Rick shouts. “We’ve gotta go, brother!”

Daryl clutches Beth’s body close, dripping tears and sweat onto her face.

“Daryl!” Rick shouts again, and in an instant, he’s beside them, shaking Daryl by the shoulder.

Daryl shrugs him off. “Just go,” he says.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“We’re gonna be buried in these motherfuckers in about five seconds if we don’t get our asses moving!” the soldier shouts.

Daryl says nothing, but she feels his arms tighten around her.

Rick bends to the knee, placing his hand on Daryl’s shoulder. “Daryl, we can’t take her.”

“No!” he cries, gathering Beth closer to his chest. “I’m not just gonna leave her behind. Did that once.”

“She’ll slow us down,” Rick says judiciously, reaching for Beth’s body. Her arms and legs swing as Daryl shifts her away from Rick’s prying hands.

“Daryl, I _need_ you,” Rick pleads.

Beth crouches beside Daryl, wishing there was something she could do. Holding onto her will just get him killed. Rick can’t allow Daryl to die for nothing, and neither would she. They’ll have to leave her behind. Beth’s blood runs cold with the realization that her body is still too fresh, too warm.

All that’s left of her will disappear when the walkers come.

Her stomach churns and bile rises at the back of her throat, but she knows she can’t avoid it. She’s known for a long time that it was going to end this way.

“You gotta go, Daryl. _Please_ , you gotta go,” Beth begs, willing him to hear her.

He doesn’t, and Beth nearly cries in frustration.

“I can carry her,” Tyreese offers, opening his muscular arms to receive the body, and Beth’s breath gushes out of her from pure relief.

Daryl reluctantly lets Tyreese take her, and he lifts her easily into his thick arms. Daryl swipes at the snot dripping from his nose with the back of his hand. The second his hands are free, Rick thrusts his crossbow into them.

“See if you can get this started,” Rick instructs over his shoulder, gesturing to an older model Jeep Cherokee parked nearby before running off to help the others.

Daryl immediately goes to work hotwiring the jeep. After some deliberation, Beth follows Tyreese as he moves to the back of the jeep, and she senses Merle trailing not far behind. Tyreese struggles single-handedly with the hatchback, but he manages to get the door open and hefts himself and Beth inside, laying her body in the empty trunk space.

“We goin’ on a road trip?” Merle asks.

“Daryl!” Rick suddenly shouts.

Beth’s heart stutters, and she runs to see Daryl scrambling for his crossbow on the driver’s seat. He fires at the walker gunning for his legs, but the bolt misses, embedding in the walker’s jaw. Daryl kicks at the creature, reaching for the knife at his belt, but there isn’t much room to move his arms in the space beneath the driver’s seat.

Tyreese slams the hatchback door shut before coming up behind the walker and grasping it by its ragged clothing. The walker twists its head around, snapping its teeth at him, skeletal arms flailing. With the force of a giant, Tyreese slams the walker’s face against the side window again and again until he paints almost the entire window pane with gore.

The parking lot has become a massacre of undead, but more keep surging in through the fallen gate. It must be the entire population of Atlanta coming for them, because Beth doesn’t think she’s seen this many walkers since the farm was overrun.

The rumble of an engine starts, and Beth sees most of the group piling into a white van and Glenn waving his arms at Rick. “Come on!” he shouts.

Beth rushes forward with the three as they make a break for the van, but she slams up against something like an invisible force field.

Beth gasps, watching as her family runs on ahead without her, and the walkers begin to form a sea between them. “Wait!” Beth strains to move forward, but it’s as if there’s a magnet repelling her back, keeping her from moving even an inch. “Wait,” she whispers.

Daryl halts in his steps, and for a moment Beth almost lets herself believe that he’s heard her.

“Where’s Beth?” he asks, already spinning around to double back.

“I put her in the jeep!” Tyreese says.

Beth’s heart lifts when she sees Daryl coming back for her, but it’s quickly followed by a heartrending blow as walkers emerge from within the hospital and surround the jeep. Beth lets out a little cry, knowing that Daryl won’t be coming for her this time. It would be suicide to go back now. Not for a girl who’s already dead.

Daryl surges forward, but Rick pulls him back by the vest before he can go off and get himself killed. “She’s _gone_!” Ricks says. “ _There’s nothing we can do!_ ”

“No!” Daryl cries, trying to shrug out of Rick’s grasp. “I gotta get her! I gotta bury her– I gotta–”

Rick hooks an arm around Daryl’s neck, pulling him in close and pressing his forehead against Daryl’s. “We’ll come back,” Rick promises.

Daryl stops struggling and falls apart. “No, we won’t.”

Rick shakes his head. “No, we won’t.”

Merle suddenly jerks Beth by the arm. “Girl, the hell ya doin’?” he exclaims. “Ya just gonna let ‘em leave without ya?”

Beth’s arm falls back down by her side. She stands with her head bowed. “I just want my mom and dad,” Beth chokes.

“You think you’ll be seeing them where you’re goin’?”

Beth can’t even speak for the cries tearing from her throat.

“You didn’t do that shit for anyone but yourself,” Merle spits.

Beth snaps her head up to see disgust in Merle’s face. “No! I did it for Noah!”

Her memory is a little fuzzy, but she knows that much is true. She couldn’t allow him to go back to that place knowing what kind of place it was. She couldn’t allow him to be another one of Dawn’s sacrifices. She was thinking it the moment she slid the scissors out of her cast and thrust them into Dawn’s shoulder. But after those perfect headshots she made in the pitch dark with an injured wrist while making a daring escape, what excuse did she have for failing to kill Dawn? If she’d hit her target, struck just a little bit higher and punctured the artery in the woman’s throat, none of this would’ve happened.

_What_ had been going through her head?

_Oh, right. A bullet_ , Beth thinks, and a hysterical laugh almost bursts from her mouth.

But she’d done it to save Noah. She had.

Dawn’s whispering voice cuts through her memory like a knife.

_I knew you’d be back._

Beth’s stomach sinks with the realization that it was more than a missed target that caused this. It was anger. Anger made her stupid. And it was stupidity that got her dead. She’d meant to take Dawn’s life. And it was for Noah. It was. But it wasn’t just for him. And she hadn’t thought. She hadn’t thought at all of the consequences. Daryl had torn Atlanta apart to bring her home and she’d fucked it all up, got herself killed when they were just steps away from freedom.

Maybe Dawn was right. Maybe some people really aren’t meant for this life, if you could call it a life anymore. Maybe there’s no room left in this world for softer things. For beauty. For family.

For love.

Beth watches as Daryl sucks in a breath in an effort to compose himself. He wipes his wet eyes, gulps her name one final time.

“I think he loves me,” she says.

“ _Ya think?_ ” Merle exclaims. His sudden rasping laugh makes Beth choke a wet laugh of her own. Merle gives a crooked but honest smile. “ _Whoowee!_ That poor bastard fell ass over heels for ya, sweet cheeks. Ain’t _never_ seen that boy look at anyone way he looks at you. Never saw it coming neither, cryin’ like a little girl down at that ‘shine shack...” Beth catches when Merle’s eyes soften, and somehow the way he describes Daryl as a _little girl_ doesn’t sound quite as offensive as she thinks it probably should.

Beth wipes her wet cheeks. “You saw that?”

“Not like I woulda stuck around to watch ya’ll bumpin’ uglies,” Merle scoffs. “I ain’t a pervert.”

Beth chokes a watery laugh. Bumping uglies? _With Daryl?_ It’s almost absurd to even think about it. But the laughter turns to more tears as she thinks of a burning moonshine shack in the middle of the night, of glancing over her shoulder at Daryl and seeing his light smile.

Things weren’t good after the prison. Those were awful times, but not the worst. Daryl walked around like an empty shell. He was barely human then, operating completely in survival mode. But after the moonshine it was better. They weren’t great, and they were far from perfect. But with Daryl things were okay. It was enough.

He was a comfort to her in those times, always there to keep her safe, keep her company. A tap to her shoulder to signal danger up ahead. The brush of his knuckles as they walked in tandem. Then there was the motherly way he’d tended to her twisted ankle, constantly asking if she was in pain, if she wanted to be carried. And then without asking, he’d swept her off her feet to a white trash brunch. She thinks of the tremble of her fingers as they sang across the keys of a piano just for him, his soft sigh as he fell deeper into _the comfiest bed he’s had in years_ and just _listened_.

She thinks of a candlelit dinner of peanut butter and jelly, Diet Coke, and pigs’ feet.

_What changed your mind?_

_...Oh_.

Daryl hadn’t spoken one word, but his eyes had said everything.

And after that, there was only Daryl and her single-minded focus to escape Grady to find him again. There wasn’t a moment she hadn’t spared to think about Daryl and _Oh_ and _Maybe we stick around here for a while_...

Daryl takes one final heaving breath and turns away. Beth watches, gulping her own tears, and knows she could have loved him. There was all the possibility in the world...

Until there wasn’t.

Rick slings an arm across Daryl’s shoulders and ushers him along. She watches them until their retreating backs are a point in the distance before they disappear, and tears swallow up the rest of her vision.

Abandoned in the trunk of a car. No time for a funeral. No flowers. No words spoken over a shallow grave. It’s rare these days if you make it even that far. If the walkers don’t take all that’s left of you in this world.

At least there’s a cross marking her grave, painted white on the rear window.

Merle walks up, places his right hand on her shoulder. Beth hugs herself around the middle, shrinking into herself, and only just managing to keep breathing despite the constriction in her throat.

“Ya still got a choice to make, sweet pea,” he says.

“ _Choice?_ ” Beth cries, verging on hysteria. “What choice? I’m _dead_! I’m literally _beside_ myself!” Beth gestures back at the jeep where her body lay abandoned, curled up in the back along with a good man’s heart.

“I’m tellin’ ya, you can still go back.”

“ _How_?” she demands, because everything about this conversation is absurd. Yet, the butterfly wings of _Hope_ flutter inside of her and plead for her to _listen_. “How can I go back?”

“Ya fight, girl,” Merle says. “Didn’t my brother teach ya _nothin’_?”

Merle’s right. He’s wrong, but he’s right.

Sure, Daryl taught her things. Like how to hot-wire a car and track game and field dress a deer in five minutes or less. All useful tips on surviving on her own out in the wilderness. He’d even given her lessons with his crossbow.

But fighting? _Living?_

She learned that all on her own.

Beth closes her hand over her left wrist, over the scar that nearly stopped her life short back at the beginning of this nightmare, and feels the rhythm of blood still flowing through her veins. The heartbeat at her wrist is weak, but not lost.

_Wouldn’t kill you to have a little faith._

She has to believe that things can’t be dark and deadly all the time. There has to be more to the world than that. It’s like her daddy once said: _If you don’t have hope, what’s the point of living?_ There was a time not too long ago when she almost let the darkness take her, but she fought. She fought like hell to find the light again. And it found a way in through the cracks, filled in the dark spaces of her mind whenever she felt like quitting. She found the light. And for a time, she believed the light found her too.

There has to be balance, she realizes. There is pain, but eventually there is also laughter to relieve it. The world is so much uglier now, but there is beauty to be found in small gestures. Like hanging art on prison cell walls. Or dressing up twice dead walkers in nice suits to be buried. Like placing yellow flowers on a grave that wasn’t her daddy’s. Balance is finding a family in strangers despite the loss of loved ones, and building a home from the bones of a prison. It means finding love at the end of the world. It means holding onto hope when all else seems lost.

It means the good ones _can_ survive.

Finding a reason to go on in this life is always the hardest part, but she’s done it before, and she can do it again. She can do better next time. For her family. For Daryl.

For Beth.

When she breathes, it no longer feels like choking.

Merle takes a long drag from his cigarette. “It don’t gotta end here, sugar,” he says, exhaling smoke as he speaks. He gives her shoulder a light squeeze. “But, like I said. It’s your choice. I’ll just wait right here till ya decide. Just promise me somethin’.”

“Okay,” she whispers.

“Take care of him for me, would ya?” he says, appearing unaffected despite the desperation shining in his eyes. He doesn’t look at her head on, but instead watches her intently from his peripheries.

Merle might fool a lot of people with his seeming indifference, but Beth has come to understand Dixon men, and the cloud of smoke he envelops himself in doesn’t disguise the words his pride will never let him say.

Things like: _my brother deserves something good in his life_ and _don’t let those people and Officer Friendly turn him into their punk_ and _tell him_ _I’m sorry that I wasn’t what either of us wanted_.

Merle pauses, and one more ounce of his infamous pride is sacrificed.

“I’m countin’ on ya, Greene.”

Beth gives a nod and she turns to face the road, eyes once more burning bright with the possibilities of a girl who can live.


End file.
